As we saw from last years drone attacks on the entity, the shahed drones are easy pickings over Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and Saudi for everyone from comprador air forces to concerned British jets out of Cyprus. Not to mention there’s a whole carrier group stationed off the Israeli coast.

This time, drones are being used to hit the gulf states and US bases 200km away instead of 2000km away. This has some benefits. By using the drones against the gulf states, the time for possible interception is much lower - this means you can use fewer drones - this means you can use fewer launchers - this reduces exposure time for launch personnel.

Right now, the entity is being hit by the largest and most capable ballistics missiles that Iran has, several times per day. These are only really interceptable by THADD batteries, which Iran is doing well to destroy. Meanwhile Hezbollah is firing shorter range and much cheaper rockets to drain the interceptor stockpiles. Once the interceptor stockpiles are empty, Iran can launch massive drone attacks again.

It’s whatever is needed for the legality, cope, and bombast of the moment. Funding wasn’t blocked, so it can be promoted from an “operation” to a “war”.

Taking out the causeway might actually cause a revolution to kick off, otherwise it’s a race to secure the causeway and stop the Saudi’s.

They took the parachutes out because being aerially keelhauled and turned into salsa spray wasn’t considered survivable or dignified. Tanker, cargo, and most radar aircraft crew just die when their plane goes down.

We’re going to see a lot more ships get hit in the next few days.

Many shipping companies have now resolved their insurance issues. For the first two weeks of the war, companies stopped their ships either side of the straits of hormuz until they could find supplemental war risk insurance via commercial means. The US government has now stepped in and offered to pay for these supplementals, which is likely why Trump is now insisting ships attempt to run the straits, escorted or not. S&P is reporting several ships have begun trying to run the straits, which is why we saw so many get hit yesterday. Some of you may die, but that’s a risk the company is now insured to take. Damn the shaheds, full speed ahead.

In other news, Aramco (Saudi’s) have started pumping oil westwards towards the Yanbu Refinery on the red sea, and many very large crude ships have diverted towards the port. It’s a good thing there’s no other anti-genocide shia factions that are known for causing trouble in that particular sea.

They use Te-1 mines that sit on the seabed and then launch a rocket (yes, really) up from the seabed into the bottom of detected ships. They’re reported to have a range of about 2 miles, and will be programmed to fire at certain acoustic signatures that have been recorded previously by your submarines and spy ships. If you don’t have a big library of up to date acoustic signatures, you could just remove the IFF feature and tell everyone good luck.

To put this in perspective, the Strait of Hormuz could become very spicy with just a handful of these mines deployed.

It’s possible they detected some kind of loud old-fashioned diesel sub making a run out into the strait and home. Iran has domestically built versions of the Te-1 mine for example, which deploys on the seabed and fires a rocket (yes, rockets work underwater) at a detected ship/submarine.

Mining the strait doesn’t need to be absolute. They could direct all shipping to take a certain path and mine some areas outside of the path with submarines to ensure all ships pass through a checkpoint corridor that is easier for them to control. Limited mining operations would also force the US to expose surface warships to danger, and make submarine operations far more dangerous.

If this is true, Iran is going to start firing like crazy tonight.

Even a 94% interception would just Iran successfully depleting interceptors with cheap drones.

It doesn’t matter if they did it or not. The UAE either did it, or, they are in an alliance with those who did.

For Iran to establish credible future deterrence, it must strike all regional refining and desalination assets. This is unlikely to convince the gulf states to leave an alliance that they have essentially been blackmailed into, but, it does allow Iran to use cheaper and less capable weapons to split and consume the limited and slow replenishing US interceptor stockpiles.

The attack on Cyprus is a good one, since the UK has already stated that it did not come from Iran. Regardless of the actual truth, it’s an excellent pretext for a left wing government to declare Israel an enemy state, the IDF a terrorist organization, and politically repress any person or organization that lobbies or advocates for them. It’s the kind of thing that that can be kept in the back pocket and dug up at any future point and retroactively label our opponents as enemy agents that advocate for terrorism against UK citizens.

Yeah my concern is that the response to running out of interceptors is nuclear bunker busters.

Pretty sure people read these kind of articles to remind us that they’re all talent-less word-mercenaries that should be put to the sword.

5 manned aircraft are down so far, and about 12+ aircraft-sized recon drones.

Following the rules with Europe has earned them nothing.

Hegseth claimed the Tuesday night strike on the warship was the first time an enemy vessel had been sunk by a torpedo since the Second World War.

I’m assuming he means by the US Navy, because other countries have.

They should say supportive stance for international law and norms.

Shame western countries, call them pariah states, terrorists. We’re in a new world now, force them to acknowledge the reality of their positions.

Even if they did, it’s self selection for people who take the threat seriously and have the know-how to fight a protracted conflict.

That’s part of Dahiya Doctrine.

Crossroads tend to hold the main electrical and water junctions, as well as being necessary for vehicles. It’s a way of disrupting civilian life while you figure out how to build enough bombs to flatten every house in the neighbourhood while Europe ignores what you’re doing.